Vaibhav Suryavanshi (Image source: BCCI/IPL)
MUMBAI: He left the cricket world mesmerized by his immense batting ability, raining down his relentless searing blades, but Rajasthan’s explosive opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi also faced some scrutiny for playing as an ‘influencer’, meaning he only batted during matches and did not play at all.
The 15-year-old batting sensation has smashed 579 runs in 13 matches at an average of 44.53 with an incredible strike rate of 236.32, with three fifties and one hundred in IPL-2026.However, former India batsmen Sanjay Manjrekar and Mohammad Kaif criticized RR’s decision to play the dashing left-hander as an impact spinner. While Manjrekar said that not playing during matches would hamper Sooryavanshi’s growth as a player, since playing too is a specialized job and an important field for any cricketer, Kaif noted that the young gun “did not work out this IPL season”.
When asked ahead of his team’s crucial match against Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium on Sunday afternoon why RR played Sooryavanshi only as an “influential player”, the team’s assistant coach Trevor Binnie maintained that the youngster is a “very good player”. “So, he’s a very good player. He’s got great hands. He moves well. He dives. He anticipates. He’s got all of that. It’s the way it’s done. And sometimes with him opening the bat, coming into the second innings fresh, it’s worked out for us.”
So, there’s no specific reason why you can say: ‘Oh, he’s a bad player, we don’t play with him on the field.’ So, it has nothing to do with it. It’s just circumstances. Sometimes there was a slightly better player or a more experienced player.
But overall, the goal was to keep him fresh for his hitting,” Penny said in a pre-match press conference on Saturday. Sooryanshi’s running between the wickets was “very good” too, Benny insisted.
“But he doesn’t really have to run between the wickets much, right? It’s just a break. I think he can if he has to. I saw in the last match, he had 10 off 11 balls. He was very determined to win that match. That’s why he didn’t come in and just try to bowl from the first ball,” the RR assistant coach said. Praising Sooryavanshi, Benny said the youngster “lives in his own bubble” and was the nicest player he had ever seen in his four-decade cricketing career. “I’m sure he’s very excited (to play at Wankhede Stadium for the first time). We don’t have to talk to him too much. He’s just a nice lad, he’s very confident, he’s very excited every day to go and play and train. So, to be honest, we don’t have to talk to him too much. He’s just in his little bubble, training hard, and then when he goes out to play, he just enjoys himself. So, it’s very rare that I see that at all.”
So, I’ve been in cricket for 40 years and I’ve never seen that before. So, I hope it lasts a long time, and I certainly hope it works out tomorrow.”How is the Rajasthan Royals coaching staff, led by head coach Kumar Sangakkara, protecting Sooryavanshi from the massive hype surrounding him? “We have a really good team, management staff, support staff, who take care of him. He’s very young and the nights are long and that kind of thing.”
So, we take care of him in the evening, make sure he trains accordingly, and take care of all the little things you have to do with a little boy. But he’s so terrible in a way, how he deals with everything. “Talking about Joffrey Archer and his season so far, he struggled a little bit last season, he’s come back really well,” said Penny.‘Talk about losing the England Test doesn’t bother Archer’Meanwhile, RR’s England pacer Jofra Archer has missed the first Test against New Zealand starting on June 4 due to his IPL commitments, sparking a storm in England, with former England captain Michael Athron questioning in his column in The Times whether a “central contract” has value if Archer were to miss the first Test of the summer, describing the situation as “incredibly frustrating”.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan also criticized the ECB-BCCI deal for Archer, questioning the fast bowler’s involvement in the IPL.
When asked if Archer was affected by the criticism, Penny came up with a practical answer. “Yes, I have read some of these articles. It is very strange because it is a big tournament. Everyone knows that the Indian Premier League is the thing we have to come to as well. So, if he misses one match for England, so be it for him.”
I think that’s the way he thinks. But I don’t think it bothers him. I think he might be a little upset, but I can’t answer that for him.
But he behaves as usual.He barely mentioned it. The guys didn’t even talk about it. But, yeah, it is what it is. Either you come and get selected here and then upset people there or you leave here early and then you will face the problem of never returning to the Indian Premier League.”Binnie revealed that senior pacer Ravindra Jadeja (elbow) and skipper Ryan Parag (hamstring, shoulder), who missed the last match due to injuries, were “looking good”, but he was non-committal on whether the duo would feature in the team’s crucial final league clash against MI on Sunday. “Yes, they have annoyances. We’ll test them today. It’s a practice to see if we can pick them for tomorrow. I can’t say much more than that. Not really on the selection panel. But they look good. Obviously there’s annoyances there,” Benny revealed.
